Before You Have Been A Day In The City Some Kind Soul Will Warn You
Against Everything You Have Been In The Habit Of Doing As Leading To
Sudden And Severe Death In This Subtle Air.
You will hear in a dozen
different tones the favorite proverb, which may be translated, -
The air of Madrid is as sharp as a knife, -
It will spare a candle and blow out your life: -
and another where the truth, as in many Spanish proverbs, is sacrificed
to the rhyme, saying that the climate is tres meses invierno y nueve
infierno, - three months winter and nine months Tophet. At the first
coming of the winter frosts the genuine son of Madrid gets out his capa,
the national full round cloak, and never leaves it off till late in the
hot spring days. They have a way of throwing one corner over the left
shoulder, so that a bright strip of gay lining falls outward and
pleasantly relieves the sombre monotony of the streets. In this way the
face is completely covered by the heavy woollen folds, only the eyes
being visible under the sombrero. The true Spaniard breathes no
out-of-doors air all winter except through his cloak, and they stare at
strangers who go about with uncovered faces enjoying the brisk air as if
they were lunatics. But what makes the custom absurdly incongruous is
that the women have no such terror of fresh air. While the hidalgo goes
smothered in his wrappings his wife and daughter wear nothing on their
necks and faces but their pretty complexions, and the gallant breeze,
grateful for this generous confidence, repays them in roses. I have
sometimes fancied that in this land of traditions this difference might
have arisen in those days of adventure when the cavaliers had good
reasons for keeping their faces concealed, while the senoras, we are
bound to believe, have never done anything for which their own beauty
was not the best excuse.
Nearly all there is of interest in Madrid consists in the faces and the
life of its people. There is but one portion of the city which appeals
to the tourist's ordinary set of emotions. This is the old Moors'
quarter, - the intricate jumble of streets and places on the western edge
of the town, overlooking the bankrupt river. Here is St. Andrew's, the
parish church where Isabella the Catholic and her pious husband used to
offer their stiff and dutiful prayers. Behind it a market-place of the
most primitive kind runs precipitately down to the Street of. Segovia,
at such an angle that you wonder the turnips and carrots can ever be
brought to keep their places on the rocky slope. If you will wander
through the dark alleys and hilly streets of this quarter when twilight
is softening the tall tenement-houses to a softer purpose, and the
doorways are all full of gossiping groups, and here and there in the
little courts you can hear the tinkling of a guitar and the drone of
ballads, and see the idlers lounging by the fountains, and everywhere
against the purple sky the crosses of old convents, while the evening
air is musical with slow chimes from the full-arched belfries, it will
not be hard to imagine you are in the Spain you have read and dreamed
of. And, climbing out of this labyrinth of slums, you pass under the
gloomy gates that lead to the Plaza Mayor. This once magnificent square
is now as squalid and forsaken as the Place Royale of Paris, though it
dates from a period comparatively recent. The mind so instinctively
revolts at the contemplation of those orgies of priestly brutality which
have made the very name of this place redolent with a fragrance of
scorched Christians, that we naturally assign it an immemorial
antiquity. But a glance at the booby face of Philip III. on his
round-bellied charger in the centre of the square will remind us that
this place was built at the same time the Mayflower's passengers were
laying the massive foundations of the great Republic. The Autos-da-Fe,
the plays of Lope de Vega, and the bull-fights went on for many years
with impartial frequency under the approving eyes of royalty, which
occupied a convenient balcony in the Panaderia, that overdressed
building with the two extinguisher towers. Down to a period
disgracefully near us, those balconies were occupied by the dull-eyed,
pendulous-lipped tyrants who have sat on the throne of St. Ferdinand,
while there in the spacious court below the varied sports went
on, - to-day a comedy of Master Lope, to-morrow the gentle and joyous
slaying of bulls, and the next day, with greater pomp and ceremony, with
banners hung from the windows, and my lord the king surrounded by his
women and his courtiers in their bravest gear, and the august presence
of the chief priests and their idol in the form of wine and wafers, - the
judg-ment and fiery sentence of the thinking men of Spain.
Let us remember as we leave this accursed spot that the old palace of
the Inquisition is now the Ministry of Justice, where a liberal
statesman has just drawn up the bill of civil marriage; and that in the
convent of the Trinitarians a Spanish Rationalist, the Minister of
Fomento, is laboring to secularize education in the Peninsula. There is
much coiling and hissing, but the fangs of the ser-pent are much less
prompt and effective than of old.
The wide Calle Mayor brings you in a moment out of these mouldy shadows
and into the broad light of nowadays which shines in the Puerta del Sol.
Here, under the walls of the Ministry of the Interior, the quick,
restless heart of Madrid beats with the new life it has lately earned.
The flags of the pavement have been often stained with blood, but of
blood shed in combat, in the assertion of individual freedom.
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